Bloodbath Night
by OzGeek
Summary: Describes what happened during the night Abby stayed at McGee's in Bloodbath. A little McAbby but no sex. I'm in Australia, we've only just seen Bloodbath. Also see Not Bloodbath Night.


"Are you alright?" he asked searching her eyes, the toothbrush held in his hand almost forgotten.

"Yeah," she said relived. She plucked the toothbrush from his upturned fingers. "I am now. I thought you were never going to get back."

McGee looked back towards the window Michael had used for his escape. "I thought I shut that," he muttered to himself striding across the bedroom to slam it closed.

"Oh, you did," Abby assured him as she followed.

"So how did he get in?" Even as the words tumbled from his mouth, he knew the answer.

"He knocked."

McGee stood perfectly still, closed his eyes and replayed the words a couple of times in his head to make sure he had heard correctly.

"He…knocked?" he repeated for confirmation.

"Yeah."

He turned and stamped his foot at her in frustration. "What did I tell you?"

"Well," she countered. "I thought it was you. If you hadn't done the whole 'it's the wolf' thing with me, it might never have happened. It's your fault really."

He stared at her incredulously, shook his head to clear it and stared at her again. This was just pure, unadulterated Abby logic.

"He could have killed you!" there was an anger born from fear "Don't you realise how serious this is?"

She shrugged casually causing him to sigh and shake his head. He shot her one last frustrated look.

"Gibbs is going to kill me," he muttered stomping off through the apartment to the front door to rehang his coat.

"Not if you don't tell him," Abby called after him.

"He's like Santa Claus," McGee reminded her.

He turned and surveyed the room. Not too bad, just a few papers on the ground. His interest was attracted to a red box on the kitchen floor. The box had been sitting on his kitchen bench for more than a year now to the point where it had become almost invisible. It was now lying upturned with its contents scattered haphazardly about it. Sighing, he moved to pick up the box and it was then he noticed his beloved typewriter lying on the floor, face down, hard up against the kitchen cupboards.

A strangle gasp escaped him and he knelt beside the old Remington, turning it over gently with both hands. The keys groaned with the faint off-key tone of metal on metal setting his teeth on edge. He surveyed the damage in a state of shock. The actual finger pads seemed fine but the delicate letter stalks were frozen in a grotesque claw of rigour mortis as if, in its last moments, it had been grasping for help. There was a uniform dent running through the line of stalks which indicated an impact with something: probably the red box. Some of the little metal letters had snapped off and were scattered about the floor. He noted ruefully that the letter 'A' still seemed fine; untouched by the mayhem around it.

He had nearly finished repairing the mechanism. The old Remington might have had one more good novel in it had it not been unceremoniously shot put across the room.

He picked it up lovingly and carried it to his workbench laying it to rest carefully next to the paper roller and tape spindles he had removed so carefully the night before. He bestowed one last long look and then gently passed one hand over the upright stalks to settle them as best he could. He shrouded the typwriter's battered metal body in its white sheet cover and turned away, darkening the room as he retraced his path to the bedroom.

Abby was already sitting up in bed. He noted that she still remembered 'her' side from 'his". A sad smile slid across his lips as he recognised the familiarity of the scene. It had been a long time since she had been in his bed. It was hardly the time for reminiscences.

"I hope you're not even thinking about that sleeping bag McGee," she called as he continued through to the bathroom, grabbing some sleeping shorts on his way. "I want you within grasping distance all night".

When he emerged from the bathroom she was still sitting there, bright eyed and bushy tailed. He tried to recall when her last caffeine intake had been. In contrast, he felt completely drained of energy. He dragged himself around to his side of the bed, placed his gun carefully on the bedside table, turned off the lamp and slid thankfully into bed. He could feel his brain start the shutdown procedure for the night the moment his head hit the pillow and he embraced it.

"McGee," Abby started.

He sighed resolutely and turned on his back. "What?" He tried to prize his eyelids open but they were already too heavy.

"Can you reach your gun?"

"Yes Abbs."

"Like, right now, I mean?"

"Yes. Could you turn off your light, it's hard to sleep?"

"Sleep!" she shrieked. "How could you even think of sleeping?"

"Because it's really late and I'm really tired," he mumbled.

There was a click as the light was extinguished. Then began a long stream of conversation in which, it seemed, his direct involvement was unnecessary. She was restless: sitting, reclining, lying down, and bouncing on the bed all the while waving her arms wildly.

He was starting to get irritated. She was intruding on his introspection time and he had a lot to go over today what with the gassing, revelations about her love life and the home invasion. He did a quick calculation: weren't they sort of going out about a year ago. This was the guy that distracted her from him? No wonder she was embarrassed. Then his beloved typewriter: he needed time to grieve without her incessant chattering.

Guilt stomped down hard on him. She'd had a hard day too and this was just her way of coping. She was in a strange bed in a strange place. He should cut her some slack. Or at least have the courtesy to listen to her ranting.

He had a sensation of falling and an involuntary muscle spasm jerked through his body.

"McGee, stop sleeping!"

"Not sleeping," he managed to thread the words out of unco-operative lips.

"You so totally are!"

"Nooo..," it was meant to be a strong denial but it came out more like a whine.

They were the last words he heard before blessed, peaceful sleep claimed him. But not for long: something was irritating him; disturbing his hard-won sleep. He fumbled about for the TV remote on his bedside table to turn off the noise.

"I hope this isn't an example of your lightning fast super special agent reflexes, McGee," Abby complained.

"Get some sleep, Abbs," he said drowsily, realising belatedly that the remote was just not going to work on her no matter how much he tried.

"I can't," she screeched bouncing slightly on the bed.

"I'll shot you myself in a moment," he warned.

She paused just long enough for him to start drifting back towards sleep.

"I can't," she whispered.

He felt her snuggle up against his side and he rested his head on hers.

"You'll be fine," he assured her groggily before dropping off to sleep again.

* * *

Abby lay perfectly still in the darkness with her eyes wide open listening to McGee's deep, steady breathing, the occasional car outside, the creaking in the apartment and just about any noise that didn't equate to absolute stony silence.

She didn't honestly believe Michael would come back, not now McGee was here. Then she started to worry: if he did come back, would McGee react in time? She thought he probably would but she was never much for the damsel in distress scenario. She liked a bit more control over her own life than that. Specifically, she needed that gun.

She sank her head out from under McGee's and rose up on one elbow reaching over him with the other hand in the direction of the gun. Disturbed, he nuzzled her in his sleep. She froze, not daring to breathe, while he mumbled something incoherently and dropped back into a deeper sleep. Heaving a quiet, relieved sigh, she reached out and grabbed his gun off the table. Settling back again she felt the cold metal in her hand. She practised what Ziva had shown her: safety off, safety on, safety off, safety on, safety off…until she felt more secure.

She let out a bored sigh. She didn't want to leave McGee's side to go and play The Godfather again but she wasn't ready to sleep just yet. Her eyes wandered around the room and came to rest on the TV screen on the wall. She knew the remote would be on McGee's bedside table in its usual spot. She bent down close to his face, his eyes were disco dancing under the lids and he had the little snore and puff of air thing going. Experience told her he was out for the night. He looked about 10 years old sometimes when he was sleeping, especially when he was all tuckered out from a hard day's special agenting. She smiled warmly at him for a moment and then carefully leaned over him and felt around for the control.

She smiled as she relaxed back against the headboard and turned on the TV. The initial volume was too loud and she stabbed frantically at the volume control as McGee stirred in his sleep and turned over. She waited until his contented snores echoed through the room before she jacked up the sound again. A quick scan of the channels found Elvira. It had been a long time since she had shared a night with Elvira. She snuggled into the pillows happily, fiddling with the safety under the covers.

* * *

McGee woke with a start. It was still early and there was a woman in his bed with her hand across his chest. It took a moment before he registered it was Abby and then he remembered the context. He smiled ruefully. He knew why he had woken so early. Some dormant subroutine stored deep in his memory had been reactivated to tell him that if he wanted any time in his own bathroom, he had to get up before she did.

He could hear a strange sound of cackled laughing and looked up to see the TV was on. He rolled his eyes. He removed her hand gently and searched across the covers for the control where he knew Abby would have tossed it. Flicking off the TV, he looked across at his bedside table and did a double take: his gun was missing. A worried frown creased his forehead as he turned to look at Abby. His hand stepped slowly around the bed under the covers feeling for the hard metal object he knew she had taken. He heaved a restrained sigh as he slid it out from under the covers. He shot her a wide-eyed "what were you thinking" look. Then he paused: the safety was off. He knew he had put it on. Panicked, he used his free hand to check the most important part of his anatomy and was relived to find he was still intact.

He smiled gently as he looked over her face. It was easy to forget she was human. Sometimes she just seemed like a bundle of pure energy or light. In the early days, he would have been hard pressed to describe her to a sketch artist. How do you draw 'bouncy'? But when she was like this, asleep on a caffeine low, she looked human, positively fragile.

He rolled out of bed carefully, collected some clothes and took everything, including the gun, to the bathroom.

Once out and refreshed, he went in search of coffee. He knew from harsh personal experience that he had better have coffee on hand when Abby awoke. Coffee cup in one hand, gun in the other he headed for the computer, studiously ignoring the remains of his typewriter. He sat down contentedly, and turned the screen back on. He could do with a few rounds of mindless violence before Gibbs took him apart. Something was wrong: the images were stilted. He frowned and silently cursed Abby. That woman could do more damage to a computer in one minute than anyone he knew, Gibbs included.

He checked his defences. She'd taken down the firewall for her downloads and it had been down all night. Terrific. He checked the protection settings. They were set to minimum. After her last little foray into his domain he had taken to running three simultaneous virus checkers. He tried to confirm their status and was disturbed but unsurprised to find that she had disabled them. He took a deep breath and ran the most comprehensive of the batch. His hard disk whirled painfully and there was an ominous 'click' as the machine spontaneously shut down without even pausing for the 'blue screen of death'. This was not looking good.

He tried to restart but kept getting a bios error. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and tried to think calming thoughts. The gun was still by his side: if he killed her now, he could blame the stalker.

He stood resolutely and crawled under the desk to the power point. He switched off the power and counted to twenty while unplugging the box to give the capacitors some time to discharge. Standing up again, he looked around. He was going to have to use the good lights on the workbench. Hesitantly, he approached the little typewriter and gently transferred it and its accompanying paper roller and tape spindles to the kitchen bench. He gave the little assembly a single sad look then turned his attention to the computer. The typewriter was already gone, but if he was careful, he might save the life of his innocent computer.

He fiddled around the motherboard with his multi-meter for over half an hour. More than once he seriously considered cannibalising a mother board from one of the boxes stored on the shelves above the computer screens but his persistence eventually paid off and he finally located the problem. It took him another 15 minutes to actually fix it and by then he could here Abby in the bathroom. He slid the side casing back into place and reattached the box. He ran a quick set of diagnostics to assure himself all was well and then quickly flicked everything off as Abby appeared at the doorway.

"Morning," he said hurriedly striding away from the computer in an attempt to draw her attention to the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"Yes, please," she enthused heading straight for the computer, or the gun, he wasn't sure which but neither was a good option.

"Ah, we don't really have time for that," he said waving her coffee cup, trying to lure her back towards the kitchen.

She pouted at him but took the hint.

* * *

The elevator stopped at Abby's floor and McGee waited expectantly for her to move. Instead she stayed rooted to the spot.

"Ah, this is your stop, Abbs," he prompted.

"Oh, I'm not getting out of this elevator," she shook her head meaningfully.

"Um, why not?"

"Do you know how many people die in elevators every year?" she quizzed him.

"Ah, no," he admitted. "Why?"

"Almost none," she waved her arms at him as though she had made a point.

"So…," he prompted.

"So if I stay in here, I have almost no chance of dying," she concluded.

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. "Ok," he said finally. "If it makes you happy. Can I at least get out?"

"Oh sure," she smiled.

"See it doesn't matter if I die," he muttered.

The door slid open at the squad room floor. Nothing happened for a moment and then McGee cautiously poked his head out. Gibbs was nowhere in sight. Surreptitiously, he slunk out of the elevator and headed for his desk, hugging the contours of Tony's desk for protection. He was just about to sit down when he heard the voice of doom.

"What the hell happened!" he knew that Gibbs would know. He didn't know how but he knew. He turned to face his executioner.

"She forgot her toothbrush..," he started by means of explanation.

"So you left her alone," Gibbs surmised. "After I expressly ordered you not too?"

"It was only for a mom…"

"Did he get her?"

"No!" Then he deferred. "Well, yes, sort of, but I got back in time."

Gibbs reared up on him and removed his chair. "You will kneel," he said ominously, "and you will not rise for anything until you have that bastard. Do you understand me?"

Gibbs' face was precisely one inch from his own. He knew that because it was the point he just started to see cross eyed. He gulped.

"Yes sir."


End file.
